Rebiya Kadeer, an elfin grandmother with gray-tinged pigtails who was released from a Chinese prison in March 2005 and immediately whisked into exile. A former millionaire once praised by Beijing as a model businesswoman, Kadeer now lives near Washington, D.C. She is recognized as the leader of the Uighur exile community and heads the Uyghur American Association and the World Uyghur Congress; both groups receive grants from the bipartisan National Endowment for Democracy funded by the U.S. Congress

my family has been a target of Chinese government persecution. Whenever something happens, authorities go after my family. My two sons are in prison. Even my grandchildren have been kicked out of school.

You mentioned your two sons in prison. What were they charged with and what are their prison terms?In 2006 one was sentenced to seven years and the other to nine years, on charges of tax evasion and separatism, respectively.

And you were arrested in 1999 on charges of revealing state secrets. Is it true that these "secrets" included official newspapers published openly in Xinjiang?Yes, it's true. I had state-run newspapers with articles stating the numbers of deaths, arrests, and executions of Uighurs and with printed speeches by leaders saying they needed to "strike hard" against Uighurs. I sent these ordinary newspapers to my husband [who was then overseas]. These were openly available publications.

The line of troops, armored vehicles and trucks measuring several kilometers and blasting out the propaganda passed for about 25 minutes through Saimachang, the Uighur neighborhood where hundreds of women protested on Tuesday.

Helicopters flying only a few meters above rooftops scattered propaganda leaflets over the crowd of hundreds who gathered to watch the security forces march by.

Along with Tibet, Xinjiang is one of the most politically sensitive regions in China. It is strategically located at the borders of Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, has abundant oil reserves and is China's largest natural gas-producing region.

But controlling the anger on both sides of the ethnic divide will now make controlling Xinjiang, with its gas reserves and trade and energy ties to central Asia, all the more testing for the ruling Communist Party.

Xinjiang has long been a tightly controlled hotbed of ethnic tensions, fostered by an economic gap between many Uighurs and Han Chinese, government controls on religion and culture and an influx of Han migrants who now are the majority in most key cities, including Urumqi. There were attacks in the region before and during last year's Summer Olympics in Beijing.

"This was a massive conspiracy by hostile forces at home and abroad, and their goal was precisely to sabotage ethnic unity and provoke ethnic antagonism," the Communist Party boss of Xinjiang, Wang Lequan, said in a speech.

The city of Urumqi will
adopt a curfew Tuesday night to avoid further chaos amid the unrest, said Wang
Lequan, secretary of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Committee of the
Communist Party of China (CPC), on Tuesday.

Riot police on Tuesday fired tear gas to try to break up rock-throwing Han and Uighur protesters who clashed in the capital of China's Muslim region of Xinjiang two days after bloody clashes killed 156 and wounded more than 1,000.

Along with Tibet, Xinjiang is one of the most politically sensitive regions in China and in both places the government has sought to maintain its grip by controlling religious and cultural life while promising economic growth and prosperity.

Xinjiang has long been a hotbed of ethnic tensions, fostered by a yawning economic gap between Uighurs and Han Chinese, government controls on religion and culture and an influx of Han Chinese migrants who now are the majority in most key cities.

Beijing has poured cash into exploiting Xinjiang's rich oil and gas deposits and consolidating its hold on a strategically vital frontierland that borders Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia, but Uighurs say migrant Han are the main beneficiaries.

Police fired tear gas Tuesday to try to restore order as hundreds of Han Chinese armed with clubs marched through the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi, smashing shops and knocking over food stalls run by Muslims.

The city, where rioting and ethnic clashes killed 156 people two days ago, was extremely tense, with security officials breaking up a separate protest by the train station. Also, Muslim women in traditional headscarves faced off with armed Chinese police, wailing for the release of their sons and husbands detained after the riots.

China strongly condemned the attacks on its foreign missions in Netherlands and Germany by Eastern Turkestan "elements" and other unidentified people, a Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said on Tuesday.

The protest was reportedly prompted by a deadly fight between Uighurs and Han Chinese in southern China last month.

The BBC's Chris Hogg in Shanghai says that if the numbers of dead are to be believed - and state media say they may rise - this look like the bloodiest violence in China since Tiananmen Square 20 years ago.

The Obama administration has all but abandoned plans to allow Guantanamo Bay detainees who have been cleared for release to live in the United States, administration officials said yesterday, a decision that reflects bipartisan congressional opposition to admitting such prisoners but complicates efforts to persuade European allies to accept them.

Four Uighur detainees, Chinese Muslims who were incarcerated at the U.S. military prison in Cuba for more than seven years, arrived early yesterday in Bermuda, where they will become foreign guest workers. An administration official said the United States is engaged in negotiations with other countries, including Palau, an island nation in the western Pacific, to find places for the remaining 13 Uighurs held at Guantanamo.

Congressional Democrats yesterday reached agreement on a war-funding bill that would allow detainees to be sent to the United States for trial. The draft bill included no provision for prolonged detention without trial, a step that President Obama has said will be necessary to incarcerate detainees who are too dangerous to release but who cannot be prosecuted.

Shortly before the announcement of the transfer to Bermuda, Qin Gang, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, called the Uighur detainees "terrorist suspects" and insisted they be returned to China. The Obama administration has ruled that out, fearing they could be tortured or executed.

Palau, with a population of about 20,000, is an archipelago of eight main islands plus more than 250 islets that is best known for diving and tourism and is located some 800 km (500 miles) east of the Philippines in the Pacific Ocean.